


A Raven's Starry Wing

by lesbinej



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Raven Cycle, Gen, also none of them are het, and also the magic, fusing the nature and space themes is interesting, no spoilers here but this is gonna b super fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 14:13:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbinej/pseuds/lesbinej
Summary: Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, and Henry Cheng were all students at the Garrison when their friend, Gansey, vanished a year ago. Time passed and life moved on, but suddenly, Henry has found evidence that Gansey has returned--and with him, he brings foreboding knowledge of aliens and a powerful weapon named Voltron. Blue happens to know where the first piece is located. They must all learn to trust each other in order to save the universe.





	A Raven's Starry Wing

**Author's Note:**

> a fun fic turned into weeks of agony, im finally posting the first chapter! hopefully the next one will be easier, and after that it'll be a piece of cake. I'm mostly pulling from Voltron canon but pieces of the raven cycle will work its way in every now and again (especially bllb :')) so i guess just enjoy and leave a comment if u like it!

Ronan Lynch, despite his best efforts, managed to earn the reputation of the best pilot of his class. As such, he was held to expectations that he personally would have preferred to not have been. It meant following protocol in simulations and ensuring his fellow crew-/classmates did the same.

Knowing this, it was with a resigned sigh that Ronan pressed the RECORD button blinking green near his head and said aloud, “Galaxy Garrison Flight Log 14-27-11, begin descent to Phobos for scheduled cargo drop-off.”

When he released the button, Adam said in a not-mean-spirited way, “Look at you. So professional.”

“Shut up, Parrish,” Ronan replied without turning around, and continued his flight path.

Ronan’s team stuck together, at the very least. Henry Cheng--the communications tech that was reassigned to their carrier last year--still sort of distanced himself, but that grew less and less each day. Adam Parrish, the engineer student always either seen with a textbook or Monster Energy (oftentimes both), had been in Ronan’s class since Ronan had been at the Garrison. Of course, he had never even noticed him until Gansey introduced them last year.

Henry leaned forward in his seat and pressed his own RECORD button. Ronan was fond of the RECORD buttons.

“Shipment eight x-ray two one bravo requesting landing.” Henry said, very obviously trying not to laugh. Adam giggled behind him.

“Cleared for landing, Cargo,” the simulation replied.

“With both of you stop?” Ronan said after allowing Henry to relieve his desperate need to laugh.

They did not stop, because neither of them particularly wanted to listen to Ronan. Which was fair. Ronan did not listen to Ronan most of the time either.

The ship shuddered violently.

“Ronan!” Adam shouted.

“Hey, that one’s yours!” Ronan snapped back. “ _I'_ _m_ doing my job!”

Adam swiped through his screen before grunting and unbuckling his belt to check out the gearbox on the left wall. Ronan was caught up with watching him and didn’t notice that sharp angle of descent that they had taken until Henry shrieked and the entire ship crashed into the ground.

“Nice going, Lynch,” Henry sulked. The red SIMULATION FAILED sign blared.

 

Iverson chewed them all out for being a godawful team and a sorry excuse for cadets, as usual. He might have also said something racist, but Ronan hadn’t really been paying attention. He wasn’t one for paying attention.

As such, when curfew rolled around that evening, Ronan was restless from watching everyone be better than him and his team all day.

“You know what we need?” Ronan asked aloud, flopping onto his bunk, startling Chainsaw off of her perch and causing her to flap away with an indignant squawk.

“Hmm.” Adam had a pen in his mouth and a highlighter in hand, sitting at his desk reading his _Quantum Engineering IV: For Intermediate Learners_ textbook.

“We’re gonna hang out on the roof and toss firecrackers. It’ll piss off Iverson.”

“You’ll get caught,” Adam said without looking up.

“ _We’ll_ get caught. Come on.” Ronan began to coax Chainsaw into the messenger bag she rode around in.

Adam sighed and set down his highlighter. By the time Chainsaw was curled up inside the bag, Adam was ready to reluctantly follow Ronan wherever we went. As he always did.

As the two snuck around the Garrison’s after-hours crew, carefully maneuvering between janitors and instructors and security, Ronan couldn’t help but be reminded of when he would creep these same halls with Gansey. Or without Gansey, only to find him on the roof with Henry and their alien-tracking technology. Or finding Gansey on the roof by himself, measuring the stars with his hand covered in pen scribbles, his glasses on the gravel beside him. Gansey and Henry believed in aliens, wanted to find them, and built technology that they had said would lead them to the aliens. Ronan didn’t know how much of it he believed, but Gansey’s excitement about them had been infectious.

Ronan, so lost in his own thought, hardly noticed when Adam threw up a hand to prevent Ronan from tripping straight around a corner into a hallway. They made eye contact. Adam’s eyes said _you dumb shit, look._

Ronan looked.

Henry was exiting his own dorm, just as carefully as Adam and Ronan had not ten minutes earlier, Gansey’s equipment in his arms and on his back. He didn’t notice the two boys lurking just out of sight, and proceeded down the hallway towards the roof.

Ronan’s eyes said _let’s follow him._

Adam agreed.

 

The roof lay the same as it always did, covered in crunchy gravel and solar panels, satellite dishes, and one Henry surrounded by Gansey’s alien detecting magic boxes.

Ronan didn’t know Henry that well, despite him being assigned to their carrier for the past year. Henry was distant, closed-off; it led Ronan to suspect that he’d been affected by Gansey’s disappearance harder than he let on.

Ronan could understand that. He’d known Gansey since they were babies.

He peered over Henry’s shoulder. Green blobs scattered across what looked like a map.

“Hey,” Ronan said. Henry and Adam both started.

“Oh! Ronan, you scared me.”

“Yeah.” Ronan squinted further at the screen and Henry’s notepad covered in gibberish. “Why do you have Gansey’s stuff.”

“Gansey’s _and_ mine,” Henry pointed out defensively. He didn’t notice Adam’s eyes sparkling with interest as he stared at Henry’s screen.

Chainsaw, in the bag, began shuffling around, indignant that something was happening and she was not the center of attention. Ronan released her, watching as she hopped around the roof.

“Gansey and I built it together,” Henry continued, watching Chainsaw with a suspicious eye.

“What’re you doing with it?” Adam’s eyes turned to a beeping box connected to a satellite dish.

“I’m--” Henry took in a deep breath.

“You weren’t the only one who knew Gansey,” Ronan said, getting frustrated. “Just spit it out.”

“I’m looking for him! Okay?” Henry’s eyes were hot with anger, and before Ronan could react, he continued. “I think he’s back. Maybe more accurately, I think I’ve found him.”

Adam sat up. Ronan narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

Henry’s animosity vanishing, he elaborated, “Gansey and I had been tracking strange energy signals. We didn’t think they were from Earth, but then they went quiet after Gansey--well, when he disappeared. I didn’t know if those were correlated or _what_ but after not getting any readings for a long time I sort of forgot about it, until tonight. They’re going _crazy--_ the readings are--and I managed to pinpoint the largest source to _here.”_ And at that final word, Henry pointed to the largest green cluster of fuck on the screen.

“Wait, wait.” Adam pressed his hands to his nose, probably having just processed Henry’s words. “Like, _aliens?_ Alien energies and technology and they’re _here?_ ”

“Maybe.” Henry watched Chainsaw again for a second as she threw gravel at a solar panel. “There’s only one way to find out.” He looked back at Ronan. “Do you want to find Gansey or not?”

There was only one answer to that.

Ronan drove the stolen Garrison truck by default, as he was the only one who had stolen one before, and as such, was the most familiar with how it worked.

Adam rode shotgun and Henry sat in the back on the floor, still surrounded by the alien tracking boxes. Chainsaw sat next to him, tugging at wires and squawking every now and again.

“We’re almost there,” Henry said. “Hey! Can you control your child?”

“No, actually,” Ronan said. “How much further?”

“Uhhhh…”

“I guess that means ‘keep going,’” Ronan muttered under his breath. Adam pretended he didn’t notice. Perhaps he didn’t.

Apparently, less than twenty miles east of the Garrison, a small town with a grand population of eight hundred people clung to the dust, as if it were afraid it would get blown away. Ronan drove past a local general store, two shoddy motels, and the saddest Taco Bell he had ever seen, and--despite all logic and sense in the world--a Wal-Mart.

Henry directed Ronan to a house about seven miles further from the town, to a single house perched on a shelf beneath a looming canyon side. Ronan was surprised the rocks had not fallen and crushed the house.

The porch light to the bizarre-looking house was on, revealing an herb garden growing in front of the deck, a calico cat snoozing on a wicker chair, and a small, somewhat round figure standing in front of the torn screen door.

Ronan and the others disembarked from the Garrison truck (Ronan remembering at the last second to put Chainsaw back in her bag), and Ronan had to shield his eyes from the porch light. When he did so, he managed to noticed that the figure was a very pissed off, very short girl who was wearing a bomber jacket in eighty degree weather. He respected the choice.

“I s’ppose you’re here for _him,_ ” she said, flat and irritated.

“Yes, probably,” Ronan agreed. She sighed.

“Well, you can come in then. Wipe your feet, or else Jimi’ll have a cow.”

 

Ronan felt very out of place in the eccentric, witchy house. Each room was busier than the last; One was filled with strange smelling herbs and incense, tarot cards scattered on the table. Another seemed like it _might_ have been a kitchen, but also could’ve been a bedroom. A third was painted completely in the same shade of blue--including the floor, ceiling, and furniture. A fourth was a Craft/Sewing/Storage room (this, the girl said aloud to them as the led them through the house). Each room clamored for attention and each pressed in closer upon Ronan, suffocating him. It made him worry the rosary in his pocket he kept specifically for worrying.

After what felt like centuries, they at last arrived in a room with a strange eye-patterned wallpaper and a couch. On the couch were seated three people: A woman with a strong face and dark skin, a very pale woman with wispy blonde hair that trailed the floor, and a very battered, scratched, and dusty Gansey. An untouched cup of tea sat on the table in front of him, still steaming.

Gansey wore a pair of pajama pants that were covered in pink hearts and a very baggy grey shirt that looked like it might have belonged to the girl that led them through the house. His feet were bare, save for SpongeBob bandaids on his toes and hands. His hands were clutched tightly around his glasses, which were miraculously unbroken. He looked like someone had been dragging him around on the ground through the desert for the past year.

“Gansey!” Henry cried, and Gansey’s eyes snapped from unfocus to Henry’s face, and then to Ronan’s, and then to Adam’s. He broke into a weak grin.

The dark woman cleared her throat.

“Blue, what have you told them?”

The girl--Blue--shrugged. The woman sighed.

“I’m Calla, this is Persephone--” the pale woman waved at the mention of her name. “Your friend appeared in our backyard an hour ago.”

“The pants are Orla’s, not his.” Blue added. Ronan assumed Orla was someone else in the house. “He _was_ wearing a creepy black bodysuit that looked torn and awful so we gave him clothes and bandaids.”

Adam pursed his lips, concern furrowing his brow. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Blue shrugged again. “Calla tried her psychometry but she said it was clouded.” Calla did not look pleased.

“His energy is different,” Persephone mumbled. “Older.”

“Anyways,” Blue said, reaching over and plucking Gansey’s tea off the table. “He keeps mumbling something about ‘Voltron.’ Nobody here knows what he means, which is _very_ strange.” She pursed her lips and stared accusingly at Ronan, as if it were somehow his fault that the infallibility of her very strange family was shattered. “I assume none of you know what he means.”

Gansey stirred a little but said nothing, his eyes hazy and staring into the distance. His knuckles were white. Nobody responded to Blue’s question, which caused her to huff. Persephone leaned forwards and plucked Gansey’s now cold tea off the table and began to drink it. Everyone remained silent.

Blue clasped her hands as if to say _well, lovely meeting you, but it’s time for you to go home!_ “Well, if there’s nothing else--”

“Blue--” Calla interrupted sharply. “Take them to the lion cave.”

The sentence made no sense to Ronan, but Blue seemed to understand. She pursed her lips and had a silent conversation with Calla.

“Can we get Gansey some real clothes first?” This was Henry, who so far had only observed. Calla’s eyes narrowed and she nodded.

Adam raised his hand. “We kinda stole a truck to get here…?”

Blue sighed. “We can take the suburban.”

 

Blue drove very slowly.

She refused to let anyone else drive because the car belonged to Calla, but she drove like a grandmother who had never seen a speedometer in her life.

“Yes, I am positive I passed my driver’s test,” Blue said, annoyed, after the fourth time Ronan asked. Her head barely cleared the dashboard. He wasn’t even sure she could see the road. On the upside to her extremely cautious driving, Gansey fell asleep in the backseat during the twenty minute drive into town. As a result, Ronan and Adam were conscripted to buy Gansey’s clothes when the finally got to the store--which, continuing the town’s trend of defying logic and reason, should have been closed.

Ronan bought a salmon polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sad boat shoes that were available for some reason. He didn’t ask. Adam picked out socks.

Gansey was still asleep when they got back to the car, but Ronan was starting to feel hungry. Dinner was hours ago.

Henry, on the same train of thought, said aloud “Didn’t we pass a Taco Bell on the way through town?”

Blue grabbed the wheel a little tighter. “Are we going to Taco Bell?”

“Well…”

Blue sighed. They pulled through the Taco Bell drive-thru.

 

Back at the house, Blue vanished to escort Gansey to a bathroom to change, leaving Ronan, Henry, and Adam in the same couch room they had been in earlier. The empty mug of what was formerly Gansey’s tea still sat on the table.

Ronan sat down, head reeling with information. “Gansey’s back.”

Adam plopped down next to him. “Yeah.”

Chainsaw hopped out of the bag and made a gurgling noise.

Henry remained standing--pacing, rather. “Where has he been? What happened to him? You guys saw those scratches, right?” Henry didn’t wait for answers from them; Ronan couldn’t have answered them anyways. “How is he here? Why was he gone for so long? What was that--that _Voltron_ that Calla mentioned?” With each question, his steps grew more erratic.

Gansey and Blue re-entered the room, Gansey now looking much closer to his former self.

“Well, I guess I have to take you to the lion cave now. Which is funny, because _I’m_ not usually allowed to go in there--”

Adam raised his hand. “Question. What’s this lion cave?”

Blue wrinkled her nose. “There’s a cave in the back that’s covered in strange markings. Persephone reckons they tell stories about a blue lion. Calla says it’s what makes our readings clear. Maura…” Blue paused, drawing in a shaky breath. “Maura meditated in there. Said it focused her.”

“Meditat _ed?_ What happened?” Henry’s attention shifted from Gansey to Blue.

Ronan could feel Blue’s hackles raising and decided he’d rather not waste any more time. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just take us there.”

 

Blue led the four boys (and Chainsaw, whom Ronan had finally let out of the backpack)  to a rocky outcropping not too far from the back patio of the house. The entrance to the cave was hidden from view, which added to its air of mystery.

“These are the lion carvings.” Blue swept her flashlight over the primitive looking marks that did indeed appear to be lions. “We’re pretty sure ley lines cross here and that’s why there’s so much charge, but they don’t really do much.”

Ronan walked up to the cave walls and swept his hand over the dusty rocks, partially uncovering a lion’s head. The rock felt ancient, and powerful.

_Alive._

Ronan leapt back just as the carving began to glow with a soft blue light, illuminating the entire outline of the head. Each carving in the cave suddenly sprung to life with a fierce, otherworldly aura that Ronan had never felt before.

It felt powerful, and ancient.

The floor collapsed beneath their feet. Gansey and Blue shrieked loudly, both instinctively grabbing for each other. Henry immediately burst into tears. Adam seemed tense and wide-eyed, like he couldn't make a sound. Chainsaw cawed loudly and took off from Ronan’s shoulder, her weight vanishing from his side. Ronan himself felt his stomach drop as the floor suddenly ceased to be beneath his feet. One second his feet were on sturdy rock, and the next, open air.

They only free fell for a few seconds before Ronan landed face-first into a spring. The water was cold, shocking, and a huge relief compared to how many bones he could have broken. Blue had stopped shrieking and everyone else was making splashing noises so Ronan assumed that they were all alive. Chainsaw fluttered down to perch once more on Ronan’s shoulder with a bubbly _Kerah!_

“Guys, are you--”

The words caught in his lungs, forgotten halfway through his sentence.

Looming beyond him, barely illuminating him with the same quiet, fierce blue glow, was the blue lion.

The lion sat in a protective bubble, massive enough that Ronan’s eyes couldn’t quite realize how much. It was beautiful--the kind of beauty that incredible and ancient power inherently held. The kind of beauty that destroyed worlds.

“Well, they’ve never done that before,” Blue said, somewhat gruff. She sounded upset at being soaking wet. Ronan could hardly blame her.

“Is… is this Voltron?” Gansey asked, his eyes hopeful but his voice doubtful.

“This is the source of the alien energy,” Henry declared, certainty in his voice.

“It’s so… powerful,” Adam said, stretching a hand over his eyes to stare at it.

They all gawked in awed silence at the beast for a few minutes, and then Blue began walking towards the lion (which Ronan admired her for but would never say aloud). After a moment, the boys followed suit.

“It looks like it’s in a force field of some kind,” Blue said, once she’d gotten close enough that she could make such assertions.

Ronan wondered if the eyes were following him. He wondered if he was just on edge.

After a moment, he decided the eyes were _definitely_ following him. He said so aloud.

“I don’t have that feeling,” Gansey said, frowning.

Blue came to a halt at the very base of the lion’s force field, close enough to stretch out a hand and touch it.

Ronan felt like strange powers were tickling the base of his neck. The again, that might have been Chainsaw’s tail. She’d been strangely quiet.

The entire cave hummed with energy. Blue’s eyes were closed and her hand rested on the force field, like she was meditating on the energies themselves.

“I wonder how we’ll get through this,” Adam mused aloud.

“Maybe you just have to knock?” Henry suggested. Nobody moved, so Ronan decided to humor them and knock twice in quick succession on the barrier.

The cave around them heaved, trembling as the barrier receded into the ground. Blue light streamed from the cracks in the rocks, creating a rune-like pattern around the beast.

What happened next, Ronan would not have been able to explain. He _couldn’t_ explain it. It was inexplicable.

A vision appeared in his eyes, as if it were being projected directly into his mind. Somewhere, something told him that it was the lion doing this, but to his eyes, it was unfolding before him.

The blue lion--along with 4 other different colored lions, appeared, glowing, magnificent, awesome. Just one lion alone held power completely unprecedented; five held a divine power to tear open universes and slay gods.

These lions shifted and whirred, fusing together to form a colossal robot in the shape of a _man_ \--

This. This was Voltron.

The vision ended as quickly as it begun, leaving Ronan confused and disoriented. Gansey’s eyes were screwed shut, as if begging the lion not to leave his mind.

Henry was the first to recover from the awestruck stupor.

“Voltron is a robot! _Voltron is a huge, huge awesome robot!_ ”

“And this is only one part,” Adam said, quietly, reverently.

“This must be what they’re looking for,” Gansey said. If Ronan had thought Adam was quiet, Gansey’s voice was lower than a whisper.

Blue said nothing at all, only remained staring at the blue lion with the most neutral gaze Ronan had ever seen. Perhaps she was thinking about how she’d spent her whole life near this cave and never known.

The Blue lion began to move--slowly, as a beast of such size must. She (something told Ronan she was a she, at any rate) crouched down, even her lower jaw twice the height of him. Adam, who was up very close, leapt back and grabbed Henry’s shoulders. Ronan took a step back, uncharacteristically cautious. Even for his recklessness, this was not a power to be trifled with.

The lion opened her mouth, letting her jaw rest gently on the stone. A ramp slip downwards to allow access.

_Well, if a giant robot lion invites me into its mouth, who am I to refuse?_

The lion almost seemed to be calling to him. Inviting him. _Daring_ him.

Ronan did not back down from dares.

He stepped inside of the lion’s mouth before anyone (Gansey) could tell him not to.

It was surprisingly temperate inside--you wouldn’t think it had been a dead robot slumbering underground for God-knows-how-long. The perfect temperature to wear his jacket in.

Almost as if responding to his thoughts, a doorway slid open to reveal a cockpit. The lion purred--was it purring? If he didn’t concentrate on it, he could hear it. If he listened, it vanished.

A pilot’s chair crouched in the center of the cockpit, again, seemingly inviting Ronan forward. He didn’t know how much to trust the lion, but it definitely beat his physics homework. Not that he would’ve done his homework anyways.

He sat.

As a result, he was unprepared for the chair to surge forward as soon as his ass touched the seat--he let out a shriek that Adam definitely would’ve mimicked had he been nearby. Chainsaw squawked and fluttered away to sit on the floor, glaring suspiciously at the chair. Screens flickered into existence just as Gansey and the others finally caught up to him. What must have been a windshield opened before Ronan in a honeycomb pattern, the screens spitting off data as a breakneck pace.

Ronan, while equally as shocked as everyone else to continue making more discoveries about this robotic lion, could not help but notice Gansey seemed less surprised and more resigned. Of course, Ronan didn’t know much about where Gansey had been the past year and had hardly been able to talk to him about it.

Adam poked a bit of whirring machinery. “We’re in a giant robot cat head.”

“Fucking furry,” Ronan said.

Adam looked affronted. “ _I_ didn’t leap at the opportunity to climb inside of a robot lion, so who’s the real furry here?”

Blue burst out into a peal of laughter. It was the first emotion Ronan had gathered from her other than cold disdain.

“You’re both furries,” Gansey said matter-of-factly. Henry and Blue giggled with glee.

The blue lion hummed with energy--Ronan couldn’t tell if she was displeased with the furry jokes. Perhaps she was going to incinerate them.

Ronan opened his mouth to respond to Gansey when the lion purred--louder than it had been. It seemed to be asking for something. Insisting upon something.

“Do you guys hear that?” Ronan asked, casual.

“Other than the sound of you being a furry, no,” Adam replied.

“I’m not a--” The lion hummed, more urgently.

Ronan pressed a few buttons on one of the screens. He hardly felt himself doing it.

Instantly, the lion responded. She closed her mouth and stood, and Ronan felt the cabin swaying around him. Almost like _he_ had stood up and stretched after a billion year nap in some dirt.

Henry grabbed the back of the seat. “If you’re going to do that again, warn us first!”

“I’m about to do it again,” Ronan said, and grabbed two handles that looked like bicycle handles. He pushed them forward at the lion’s insistence.

She rolled forward like a stream over rocks, clearing the entire cave’s distance in one bound. The side of the mountain crumbled when the lion collided with it.

“Hey this is the opposite side from my house, right?” Blue asked, loudly.

Gansey shrugged.

“Yeah,” Henry said. “We came in the other way.”

“Okay. Calla would’ve killed me.”

In the air, the lion handled like a dream. She bounded with grace and elegance, but still roughly enough that Ronan got a thrill every time.

“Oh my god, you’re a terrible pilot,” Blue managed to wince, in between getting tossed about. Gansey clutched the back of the seat like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Henry was crying and Adam was grabbing Blue’s shoulder with a completely blank expression on his face. It was probably a coping mechanism. Chainsaw hopped around on the floor, poofy and indignant.

Even though the lion was guiding him through the ropes, Ronan was still left to meet her halfway, and that halfway was a lot. Naturally, there was a learning curve.

Ronan slammed into a canyon wall at full force.

Blue probably would have died if it weren’t for Gansey’s body that she bowled over instead of the windshield. Chainsaw yelled and flapped chaotically. Henry and Adam collided and became a tangled knot of boy on the ground.

As for Ronan himself, he’d had car accidents before and this was much tamer. The lion absorbed most of the shock.

He shook his head and reversed, so that the lion’s head wasn’t directly planted into rock.

“My point still stands,” Blue said, using the chair to haul herself up.

“There’s probably too many people in here,” Adam pointed out.

Ronan gritted his teeth and tried to block out their chatter, focusing in instead on the lion.

The blue lion bounded away, completely unshaken. She seemed to know where she was going, which was good, because Ronan was still floundering.

“Where are you going?” Henry shouted, and that’s when Ronan noticed that the lion was no longer bouncing up and down in her riverlike gait. She was flying, and flying directly away from earth, taking everyone inside of her with her.

The lion presented Ronan with a vague image of a ship, and somehow he understood. Aliens were coming and they were going to stop them.

“We’re going to kill some aliens? Apparently?”

“wHAT?” Blue, still enraged but de-tangled from Gansey (who looked somewhat pink), demanded.

“I don’t know!” Ronan said hotly, his defenses crawling back. “The lion’s just doing whatever she wants!”

“You’re the pilot! Make it take me back home!”

“No,” Ronan and Gansey said at the same time, which shocked Blue into sullen silence for the moment. “You’re supposed to be here,” Gansey added.

“And what does _that_ mean?” Blue snapped, stubborn.

“I don’t… know. But you can’t leave.”

“Great. Does _anyone_ in here actually know what’s going on?”

No response. Before Blue could further antagonize, Ronan spotted the ship in the distance.

“Hey, that’s a ship? I don’t think one is supposed to be out here?”

“Those are the aliens,” Ronan said, grim.

“I heard the word ‘aliens,’” Adam said, “and also we’re in space. Just thought I’d point that out.”

“Keep up, Parrish. We’re about to kill some aliens. Like _Mass Effect,_ only you can’t date them.”

“Well, what’s the point then?” Henry pouted.

“I’d call you a furry but that’s Adam, so…”

Gansey yelped at the same time that Ronan slammed the handles to the side to avoid being blasted to death by aliens that were not interested in dating.

“Be careful!” Henry shrieked belatedly.

Gansey said nothing at all, and was so quiet that Ronan might have forgotten he was there if his hand wasn’t deathly clenched on Ronan’s shoulder. And also, he was Gansey.

The blue lion was at least forgiving; she picked up Ronan’s slack without complaint.

Ronan blasted the side of the ship with the lion’s jaw laser.

Henry, though nearly sideways, decided to crack “Wait, so on the outside does it look like that one meme--”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Blue cut him off.

Ronan decided to listen to the lion and shred the side of the ship with her claws. She did so, pleased that he took her advice.

“Lead them away from Earth,” Adam said, placing a hand on Ronan’s shoulder that wasn’t occupied by Gansey’s hand.

The lion charged away at light speed and possibly faster, Ronan wishing that he had a megaphone to say _niener niener_ into. They might have caught onto that, though.

The ship, fortunately, did turn around and pursue them even without Ronan’s taunting. He pressed the handles further, daring them, taunting them to follow him. _Chase me. Leave my family and come get me._

It wasn’t until Henry said, “That’s Kerberos,” extremely loudly that Ronan noticed how fast and how far they’d gone with the aliens right on their tail. Gansey shuddered, eyes shut and hand clenched, whiter than a sheet. Ronan wondered not for the last time what had happened to Gansey.

Because the universe was still kicking and nobody had bothered to put it down yet, it launched another hurdle at Ronan.Opening up before him (and the others around him gasped, so he knew it wasn’t just lion vision), a mystical breach swirled into existence and the lion pressed on. The lion did not ask Ronan to go into the wormhole; she demanded and expected.

“What’s that?” Blue grabbed the back of Ronan’s seat. So far that was happening a lot.

“The lion wants to go through there,” Ronan said, flat, “so we’re going through there.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Henry made a T with his hands. “We’re listening to a giant robot cat? And trusting it with our lives?”

“Well, we’ve been doing that for the past ten minutes, Cheng.” Adam said, equally as flat as Ronan. “He has a point. What else can we do?”

“We don’t know where it goes. We might not come back!”

“Gansey,” Ronan interrupted. “What do you think?”

Adam and Henry’s bickering fell silent. Blue was sidetracked with squinting at Chainsaw and probably didn’t care either way.

Gansey tensed and didn’t say anything. The lion was getting dangerously close to the breach.

“The lion knows more than we do, doesn’t she? Hasn’t she been guiding you?” Without waiting for an answer, Gansey continued, gaining confidence. “Go through.”

“Wait! Why are we letting _you,_ who showed up in my yard covered in sand and dirt, make the decisions?” Blue stomped, which was comical, considering she was less than five feet tall. “Since when were you in charge?”

“Since now,” Ronan said, and pressed the lion through into the breach.

 

The experience of being inside of a wormhole was not a pleasant one. It kind of felt like having your skin ripped off of your body at incredibly high speeds, except it wasn’t. It was traveling the universe in a way that wasn’t meant to happen: through shortcuts in the folds of the universe, tunnels underneath the surface. Wormhole tunnels were like the city beneath the city that you could only access if you had a key. Breaches were doors, the tunnels were the catacombs, and catacombs are not generally warm and sunny places.

Ronan was relieved when they exited the wormhole, as one is relieved when they feel the sun’s warmth after living for years in darkness. In a wormhole, there is no air, no matter, nothing at all, and yet Ronan hardly noticed until his lungs expanded again after escaping.

Everyone around him was still tensed; even Chainsaw was still and quiet. Poor bird had never had an experience like this.

“I don’t… recognize an constellations,” Gansey said, brow furrowed deeply.

“Me neither,” Henry said, and it was the least abrasive he’d been all evening.

A planet loomed before them, similar in coloration to Earth. The lion urged Ronan onward, towards the planet.

“It’s headed for there,” Ronan said, and pointed. “I think she’s going home.”

Chainsaw squawked because the silence that followed was irritating to her. She liked to be the center of attention and she seized every opportunity to do so.

Ronan pushed through the planet's atmosphere, letting the lion accelerate far past what he’d been hovering around. The heat buildup warmed the cockpit intensely.

“I’m starting to have second thoughts about following the lion through the wormhole,” Blue mumbled.

“Why are we listening to a robotic lion anyways?” Henry complained. Chainsaw untied his shoelace.

“It got away from an alien warship,” Ronan said, heated.

“We’re _in_ an alien warship, furry.”

“Nobody wants to be in this situation,” Gansey said, cutting off Ronan’s reply. “But we’re here now and we have to be working together.”

“Okay, so now what?” Blue snapped.

“Well…” It was clear Gansey hadn’t thought he’d get that far. “Where are we? Where are we going?”

Ronan sighed. The lion hummed quietly, offering no assistance but remaining content, which led Ronan to suspect that they were near their destination.

“She’s not saying anything. But we’re close.”

“Well, there’s a castle up ahead.” Adam rolled his eyes.

The lion seemed to be gravitating towards an alien-esque castle entrenched in foreign earth, jutting out over a glassy sea. It crouched grandly and seemed promising.

Ronan carefully landed the lion.

“Stay vigilant,” Gansey said.

“Is something wrong?” Blue asked, already halfway out of the lion.

Gansey shook his head. Blue shrugged.

Ronan and everyone else followed her down the ramp and out of the lion. Ronan felt as if he hadn’t stood up in years.

As soon as Chainsaw waddled out to hop onto Ronan’s foot, the lion began to move, startling the bird quite badly. She flapped and screamed and Ronan was surprised she was still alive through the stress of everything that had occurred in the past four hours.

The lion reared back.

“OH MAN I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO EAT US!” Henry wailed through his tears.

She roared, causing a very tall door to become illuminated and shudder open.

“Oh. I guess not.”

The interior of the castle was mostly dim and dusty; Ronan could hardly make out shapes or colors. Certainly everything was foreign to his eyes. Blue mostly marched ahead of the group, although sometimes she trailed back a little to allow Gansey and Adam to catch up.

“Hello?” Henry called. Nobody answered.

“From the size of the lion, those steps should be bigger.” Adam pointed at a set of stairs that Ronan assumed existed.

A ceiling panel opened and streamed bright blue light directly onto the diamond that they were clustered in. A cool voice said “Hold for identity scan.”

“Why are we here?” Gansey half-shouted, the loudest Ronan had heard him since he’d appeared that day.

The cool female voice did not reply. Rather, the light vanished, and alien sconces began to light up with strange sources of energy that Ronan had never seen before. He assumed that meant they had passed, at least.

A hallway illuminated slowly in front of them, the only surrounding one that was lit.

“I guess we better go that way,” Blue said, and charged onwards. They said nothing for some time, following the path of the lights that seemed to be leading them ever so slowly to the center.

Whatever that meant.

“Hello?” Henry would say every now and again, but never get a reply. Once Ronan thought he heard someone drop something, but it might’ve been his imagination. Or Chainsaw skittering around on the floor near his feet.

Finally, after what seemed like centuries, they arrived in a massive round chamber. There was a single pedestal in the center of the room, and it seemed as if many--though not all--of the castle’s passages intersected here.

A small boy--probably not much smaller than Adam, though--was seated against the far wall. His knees were brought up to his chin, his eyes had triangular yellow markings underneath them (although also notable was a large greenish bruise underneath his right eye), and his ears were pointed and drooping. Ronan was reminded of a fantasy elf, almost. The boy did not seem surprised at the group’s arrival. He held a small green ball.

“Glitter gets boring after a while,” he said without looking up. “Especially after ten thousand years.”

None of them said a word. Ronan begrudgingly liked the kid better than Henry.

“I’m sorry--what?” Gansey asked. He seemed to not be able to comprehend that a boy who looked about fifteen had just said glitter got boring after ten thousand years. Especially without even greeting them first.

“Blue used to be my lion,” he continued. “I’m glad you’ve found her.”

Without warning, the boy jumped to his feet. He wore strange clothing that Ronan could only describe as foreign before the boy spoke again.

“I’m Noah.” Noah grinned. “I’m glad things are happening again.”

“I don’t want to agree with Gansey here, but what?” Blue yelled while Adam and Henry peered over Ronan’s shoulders to find out what was going on.

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you? That means things are happening.”

“What things?” Gansey’s tone was kinder than Blue’s.

Noah waved his hand impatiently. “Things.”

Ronan suspected that this was how Noah was.

 

Noah allowed them to wander for a while and only vaguely answered questions with one word answers that only seemed to raise more questions.

“So, where are you from?” Gansey asked.

“Here.” Noah ran his hands along the wall.

“No--I mean--you can’t have lived in this castle your whole life?”

“Fine. Not here.”

Gansey gave up.

“Where are the other lions?” Adam eyed Chainsaw from behind Ronan.

“Dunno.”

“Why were they built?” Henry held Chainsaw in his hands. She didn’t much like it, but tolerated it anyways.

Noah didn’t answer that question at all, instead hanging back further. Ronan, frustrated, pushed ahead and didn’t engage with the alien. He liked him better than Henry but he still didn’t trust him.

The castle shuddered, blaring a red alarm. Noah started, as if shaken out of a daze.

“Ah,” he said.

“‘Ah?’ Is that it?!” Blue shouted over the alarm. Gansey pressed closer to her and she didn’t look particularly happy about that.

Ronan glared at Noah, who didn’t seem to notice.

“Time for us to make the things happen,” Noah said, and then vanished.

Ronan’s frustration continued to climb, but he took a deep breath. Gansey appeared haggard and panicking. Before Ronan could offer any words (what would he say?), Noah reappeared and gestured for them to follow him.

They did so, fuming.

Noah led them to a dark and mystical room that seemed to lap away their concerns like the ocean waves. It reminded Ronan of home, when he would visit the ocean in their beach house and listen to the waves outside of his window on the hot summer nights. His toes would burn in the sand but he buried them in it anyways. He hated the sun so he crept out at night to sit on the beach and watch the water ebb and flow.

Faint, blue lights pulsed ever so slowly. Noah stepped into the middle of the room and closed his eyes. Ronan couldn’t bring himself to be frustrated anymore.

A circle of light flashed throughout the room and suddenly the air was a map filled with coordinates and stars and planets, marking homes and places Ronan had never been. It stretched on forever.

“These are coordinates,” Henry said, somewhat in awe. “The black lion looks like it’s in the same place as the blue one.”

Noah grinned. “It’s in the castle to keep it away from Zarkon. You need all the rest of them to unlock it.”

“So, like, playing Mario Kart to unlock more characters,” Henry whispered to Adam.

“I never played that,” Adam whispered back, leaving Henry shocked and offended enough not to continue.

“Why are we finding these lions? What does this have to do with us?” Blue squinted.

“Well if you don’t the universe is gonna die so… I guess that’s your choice?”

Blue wrinkled her nose. “You still haven’t told us why, though.”

“Zarkon is an evil alien who wants the Galra empire to conquer the entire known universe, and for the most part, he's succeeded.”

“Oh.”

“Fair,” Henry said. “Continue, then.”

“Well, I guess the stars aligned to make you guys the new paladins, so…”

“Question.” Adam raised a hand. “You want each of us to pilot one of those big robot cats?”

“Well, yeah. Why else would you be here?”

“Fair. Continue.”

“Anyways,” Noah made a pointed stare at them. “The black lion is the biggest. She’s pretty cool since she’s the leader. And she has wings. So…” Noah squinted at each of them, scrunching his mouth up as if he were thinking. “You, the biggest.” He pointed at Ronan.

Ronan felt as if he hadn’t quite heard him right. Fortunately, he was not the first nor the only to protest.

“You want _that guy_ to be our leader?” Henry said, incredulous. Adam just stared at the ceiling. Blue looked like she might boil over. Gansey’s expression was neutral.

Noah held up his hands. “I don’t know, I just met you, like, a couple doboshes ago.”

Henry said, “A few _whats?_ ” at the same time that Blue said “I’m _not_ following _him_ ” and Ronan said “Do _I_ not get an opinion on this?” so that the entire room just sounded like the garbled mess of a fish choking on molasses.

“MOVING ON,” Noah said very loudly, obviously uncomfortable. “The green one is the littlest. She like smart ones, so…” Noah made a vague hand gesture at Gansey. This time, nobody complained.

“The blue lion is the best one, she’s great. You get to be a leg.” Noah pouted for a second. “Who took her here?”

“Ronan,” Henry said. Ronan waved.

“Oh. I guess… you can keep her.”

Gansey touched his temple. “That leaves us without black.”

Noah threw up his hands. “Well, I don’t know! Why can’t you guys pick a leader?”

“Well, you didn’t give us that opportunity before throwing colors at us!” Blue snapped.

Noah made an angry but vague hand gesture and crossed his arms.

“I suggest we vote.” Blue also crossed her arms.

“I think we need to just move on.” Adam said. “Why don’t we figure out who pilots what after we get them all back here.”

“The lions choose the pilot,” Noah said. “You can’t force it. I tried to go with my instincts but that didn’t work, so I guess we’ll have to just do our best.”

Henry shrugged.

“The red lion is also pretty cool. She likes impulsive people. I can’t find her right now, though, so I guess she’ll have to be the last one.”

Chainsaw squawked.

“The yellow lion is chill, she’s the other leg. She holds up the team and is usually pretty selfless.”

The miniature yellow lion on the map roared, and Ronan watched with fascination as the tiny lions bounded across to fuse together and form Voltron.

“Yeah, they do that. It’s pretty cool.”

Blue pressed her fingers to her forehead. Gansey leaned back on his heels, staring at the ceiling.

“So, we’re leaving to go get these lions,” Gansey said.

“Yes.” Noah poked the Voltron projection.

“Okay.” Gansey sighed. “Who wants to come with me to get Green?”

“Sure,” Henry agreed. “You guys can go get the yellow lion.”

“Someone needs to stay here for when I find Red,” Noah said.

Blue’s hand shot into the air. “God, I do not want to be in a robot cat any longer than I have to.”

“So, I’ll go with Adam and get Yellow?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Noah said. “I think the pods are around here. Ronan, you can go in Blue.”

Blue, who was staring at Chainsaw, looked up. “‘Scuse me?”

“The blue lion,” Noah clarified. “You guys can go.”

Ronan grinned at Adam. “Ready to go?”

“No,” Adam leaned back. “But we’re going anyways.”

  



End file.
